Lawyers representing people in San Diego County jails have reached a settlement in a key part of a long-running class-action lawsuit that will require Sheriff Kelly Martinez to improve the level of mental health care provided in the county’s jails.
The agreement, which was filed in San Diego federal court late Thursday, calls for the Sheriff’s Office to do more to treat mentally ill people who are booked into county custody.
It also requires San Diego County to hire more mental health providers to serve in its jails, and it calls for the federal court to retain jurisdiction over the case to make sure that promised reforms are implemented.
“These changes represent important steps in the improvement of mental health services for mentally ill incarcerated persons,” the 52-page agreement says.
“The parties agree that additional changes will be beneficial to the jail mental health delivery system, including additional care for incarcerated persons with mental health issues and more access to mental health services,” it adds.
More specifically, the settlement terms call for the sheriff to assign registered nurses to complete initial screenings of people in custody during the booking process, and to refer them to a “qualified mental health professional” within four hours if clinically needed.
Similar referrals must be made within 24 hours in “priority” cases and within one week in cases designated “routine.”
The deal also requires an intake nurse to review the outside medical records of people who have been arrested when they are booked into custody, and it calls for county health care staff to examine their medication history and ensure continuity of care.
“The county shall maintain, develop and implement clinically appropriate criteria for each (level of care),” the agreement states.
Sheriff’s officials also shall “ensure that incarcerated people who meet criteria (for) a level of mental health care are housed in a clinically appropriate housing unit and receive clinically adequate treatment.”
Lawyers for the plaintiffs told The San Diego Union-Tribune late Thursday that the settlement will benefit anyone who lands in San Diego County jails.
“This agreement is a tremendous step forward for our clients and provides much-needed relief for vulnerable class members on some of the most important issues in this case,” said Gay Grunfeld, one of many attorneys representing the class of people who are, have been and will be detained in the county’s jails.
“We look forward to working with the Sheriff’s Office and the independent neutral (party) to ensure expeditious and effective implementation of all terms of the agreement,” she added.
The Sheriff’s Office said it was pleased to have the case resolved and looks forward to making additional changes in staffing and practices.
“We are grateful to continue moving forward on improvements in our jails,” the department said in a statement. “This settlement represents further progress on making San Diego’s jails the safest in the country.”
One plaintiffs expert who visited the county’s jails said the health treatment he witnessed in them was the worst he had ever seen in a decadeslong career.
The settlement comes as the two sides continue to litigate other claims — including the jails’ other medical and dental care, safety and security, environmental health, access to lawyers and racial discrimination. No trial date on those issues has been scheduled.
The county previously resolved the lawsuit’s claim that people with disabilities were not getting proper care or accommodations in custody.
The class-action lawsuit dates back to 2020, when an incarcerated man named Darryl Dunsmore first sued over the conditions inside San Diego County jails.
Dunsmore was transferred to state prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. He is being held at the California Health Care Facility outside Stockton and is due to become eligible for parole in May.
The allegations Dunsmore filed in 2020 while representing himself were picked up by a group of civil-rights lawyers, who eventually won class-action status for the case.
The civil lawsuit has been hanging over San Diego County and the Sheriff’s Office for more than five years and has already cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The county spent at least $3 million on outside lawyers to defend the case and was directed to pay roughly $2 million to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Under the earlier settlement of claims concerning conditions for disabled people, the county agreed to retrofit showers, provide more wheelchairs and interpreters and make other changes to accommodate people with physical needs, mobility issues, and hearing or other disabilities.
The resolution of the mental health claims is particularly important because so many of the people booked into San Diego County jails have histories of mental illness.
But according to a spate of lawsuits and sworn testimony from people in custody, the Sheriff’s Office has not always provided proper care and treatment to people with mental health disorders.
Just last summer, a 43-year-old schizophrenic man named Corey Dean died in jail after he was left alone in an isolation cell, despite pleas for help from other men in the jail.
Dean screamed and banged his hands on his cell door, repeatedly pleading for help before he was found dead in the Vista jail on July 13. His body was dragged into the middle of the dayroom, where it remained for hours.
Two weeks later, Karim Talib, an 82-year-old suffering from dementia, was found dead in his Central Jail cell. Again people in nearby cells said their pleas to deputies and jail medical staff to help him went unanswered.
Both families are now suing San Diego County.
In the months following the two men’s deaths, the Dunsmore legal team sought an injunction to limit the use of the so-called isolation cells in which Dean and Talib were being held. That request was rejected by the judge early this year.
Another term in the settlement agreement requires the sheriff to improve policies for people like Dean and Talib assigned to what’s called enhanced observation and safety cells.
Those upgrades include conducting out-of-cell visits with psychiatrists within 24 hours of placement — in-person if possible but by tele-health if needed. Follow-up visits will be made as needed, the agreement says.
The out-of-cell element of the deal is important because numerous people in jail have said the sheriff’s practice of conducting mental health evaluations at the cell door — with the health care provider sometimes accompanied by a deputy — are ineffective due to privacy concerns.
“The county shall continue to work on confidentiality, with current interim steps ongoing and full implementation within 24 months of the signing of this agreement,” the settlement says.
Sheriff’s officials also agreed to work to increase the amount of time mentally ill detainees can spend outside their cells — although that part of the deal calls only for the county to “make best efforts” to increase out-of-cell time and programming.
The settlement also comes as Sheriff Martinez moves forward with plans to build a new jail in Vista. She told the Board of Supervisors late last year that she would need more money — one sheriff’s official suggested it could take billions — to develop a replacement for the Vista Detention Facility, the oldest of the county’s jails.
Martinez said she plans to release details of her funding request early this year.
Source link
